Grocery store workers have it rough rn because we have to worry about getting the virus and dying and making enough money to pay for rent and food. At the same time. I’m tired. $15 with taxes out is not it.

I saw on twitter the other day “if your job requires an appreciation week you probably aren’t getting paid enough.” It’s definitely true. It was just a nurse appreciation week. I don’t know if most nurses felt appreciated or felt any difference during that week. I’m sure they have much more pressing and crucial things to think about than a vague holiday that barely exists. It’s like the customers that always tell my cashier co-workers and me about the people who make the noise for the frontline workers at 7pm. They always tell us to thank you for what we do and they ask if we hear the ruckus at that time. I never have though because I’ve always been… at my register working. This country is very much about the talk and flimsy gestures in terms of “appreciation” instead of shit that would make us feel appreciated like livable wages. The people who keep everyone eating and alive and society as close to normal as possible are the ones who are suffering the gravest effects of this pandemic. The ones who are dying are the ones who had no choice to go to work because their job put profits first and didn’t shut down or the ones who couldn’t miss a days work because they had to make sure they had rent and food for their family.

This is a picture of me finally with my hair down at the end of a long workday. I work at a Grocery store in manhattan. These are our dingey lockers where we keep our pens (they get stolen if we leave them on our registers) and our sad little lunches. You can see my seltzer hanging from my bag. I like this picture cause my eyelashes look as dramatic as I feel and because the angry skeleton represents how I feel about this new job that I’m working for minimum wage. I feel angry and dead. lol cheers!

Yesterday my roommate and I suited up in masks and took a trip to Coney Island. We made sure to be careful and social distance the whole way. We took a car there and back and were more than 20 feet away from anyone else as we basked in the sun, feet drifting around in the sand. It was so replenishing for my soul. I felt overflowing and happy when I was there. Each minute I lay in the sand with the blue sky opened up above me I feel the weariness leak out of me. We got stuck in traffic a bit on our way home but it was ok because I was sun tired, grateful and I got to see this dog next to us in traffic.

Since I’m one of the people who has to leave her house every day during this virus, I thought I’d try and document it. I feel very rare walking the streets of NYC during this time and a lot of times I’m the only one. When I get out of work at 10:15 pm after working the closing shift at the grocery store it barely matters if I walk on the street or the side walks. There’s no body out. I’m gonna do a little photo essay where I post one photo a day that encapsulates my experience being out and about during the pandemic.

This is a pic from the closest bodega to my subway station. I needed to buy some milk for my coffee and as a perk got to meet this cat.

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thanks for being here!

This blog is a very random place where I document that I was here for myself when I get old and forget everything about my youth and for my grandchildren so they can see how fabulous I was and also what life was like way back in 2020. I hope that also if you’re reading this, you enjoy it too.